Review: Love Between Equals by Polly Young Eisendrath (PYE)
Some thoughts from Reflective Meditation teachers
As a meditation teacher, while teaching or working with students, have you ever had an experience of feeling something very strongly, which might seem totally real but confusing at the same time? Projective identification is a psychoanalytic term originally developed by Melanie Klein to describe how people project, or send out, unwanted emotions or experiences onto nearby, attuned others. Boundaries between “what is yours” and “what is mine” might be confused, as well as between what is internal versus external, because what is felt inside is often acted out.
Projective identification may be occurring when we’re acting in unusual ways, because of an unconscious pressure from the other to act in ways we would not normally act. Just as preverbal infants communicate to their mothers the distress they can’t handle, we can disown our own feelings or experiences that are painful or even impossible to bear. This projective identification is hard to identify, and our ability for reflective thought (slowing down and wondering about what is being communicated) is often elusive for both parties.
In therapy, the goal is for the therapist to receive this powerful communication, identify what is happening, and translate it into what the patient needs. The therapist seeks to put the experience into words in some way, and “give it back” to the patient in a more digestible form. Therapist and patient can strive to make meaning together, to give the patient a different relational experience. Borrowing this teaching from the therapeutic field, our goal as meditation teachers will be to spot this dynamic when it is happening within ourselves and others, especially our students.
PYE speaks to our “enemy-making tendencies,” and how we tend to project our disowned parts onto/ into our partners. As she describes, “the most convenient repository is always someone who is within reach, and who is an equal and is supposed to know you well, and by whom you feel insulted, betrayed, wounded, rejected, or blamed. This is someone you care about, to whom you feel entitled to give advice, someone who is anything but a stranger” (p.2). Her theory is that both the experience of being in love and its painful disillusioning aftermath are heavily tainted with projections from our own unconscious. Our partners represent our greatest hopes and fears. “It is the nature of projection that you see and feel as though the disavowed aspects of yourself (either idealized or devalued) are within another person, not yourself.” (p.6)
As meditation teachers, we seek to support a process where we can sit with our own experience, rather than putting it into others, and describe our experience in more friendly and nuanced ways. In a sense, this is the opposite of putting our feelings into others and unconsciously pressuring them into action. The meditation process supports our ability and intention to own and see our feelings that often are avoided or remain unconscious, rather than sending them “out” into another. Blame, revenge, ill will, feeling helpless, powerless, and many other painful experiences often arise in a meditation sitting.
As PYE reminds us, “The process of taking back our projections never ends. It means you have to maintain a kind of psychological openness that helps you repeatedly get to know (y)our partner (the other) anew and to look at (y)ourself with fresh eyes as well.” (p.6). A reflecting process – of knowing ourselves deeply and seeking to hear and see others – works against a painful and distorting human tendency that gets in the way of our connecting with those in our lives in ways we deeply yearn for. While meditation and reflection practice is not foolproof, it is a safeguard that many of us count on.
—– Janet Keyes, Befriend Your Mind
One of the definitions of Dukkha, the First Truth/ Task, that PYE uses is imperfection: we are all imperfect; our experiences, relationships, understanding, all are imperfect, indeed, nothing can be perfect. None of us knows anything for sure, although we rarely recognize or acknowledge this either in relation to ourselves or our close others.
PYE uses dialogue as a way for people/couples who are in communication stress to de-escalate their situation and speak more carefully to one another with the goal of opening communication between them when things are fraught or out of control. This process allows both people to explain and describe what each one has experienced and to hear whether the other has heard and understood. Through a process of repetition, restating, and checking back, a way forward to understanding and clarity in the relationship is possible.
She talks about creating a mindful gap, in which neither person assumes they know what is going on, either with the partner or with one-self. The mindful gap is created by speaking for yourself, paraphrasing what the other says, being curious and responding.
In a practice called Reflective Meditation, where meditation and reflection are paired, a similar dialogue takes place between the meditator and the teacher. Instead of the emphasis on a ruptured relationship, the Reflective Meditation conversation leans toward the meditator developing an intimate internal relationship, and a by-product is a relationship with the teacher and the meditation group, if there is one.
Reflective Meditation also holds that imperfection is one way of experiencing Dukkha. We use dialogue in a slightly different way: to help the meditator explore their meditative experience. A mindful gap is created in several ways: The meditator reflects on the meditation, and takes time to write down what can be recalled from the meditation. Using ordinary language and expression, the meditator describes her experience.
The teacher has several ways of helping the meditator explore the sitting: instead of paraphrasing, however, we try to use the meditator’s own words to let them know that we have heard what they said. We also ask questions about the experience, trying to help the meditator explore aspects of the sitting that might lead to seeing more deeply or clearly into the experience. We often check back with the meditator by asking, “Do I understand that correctly?” or “Did something like this happen?” all in the service of expanding the meditator’s awareness of the meditation.
—– Linda Modaro, Sati Sangha
In Love Between Equals, PYE shows an arc of deepening love within the relationship of a couple becoming equals – an intimate relationship which, as we have seen, is ripe for projection and projective identification. Similarly the relationship between student and teacher (kalayanamitta – a spiritual friendship) can fall into this arc, although the intimacy comes from the mutual learning and practicing meditation and dharma teachings together.
This arc can also be seen as a developmental process for someone learning meditation and dharma. Depending on the tradition, the teacher is often set up as an idealized being with powers ranging from being able to be present in every moment, to full awakening and liberation. We know from dharma teachings, current research, and our experience with idealization, that it is inevitably followed by disappointment and disillusionment. Dharma teachers that gloss over this aspect of the learning process and do not address the relationship between the teacher and the sangha are at greater risk of boundary crossings and ethical transgressions.
While projections on us as teachers can come in many forums, one mode of practice is particularly vulnerable: a silent retreat, with the teacher as a sole guide to a particular Buddhist tradition. Projections also occur in secular groups, where the teacher is not considered a spiritual leader but an expert in Mindfulness. The group that surrounds the teacher, a sangha whether it is large or small, is the arena for these intimate relationships; they are shared and private, hidden and visible at that same time.
The space we hold as teachers, to different degrees, whether on retreat or in ongoing groups, is ripe for learning and healing, but also ripe for the arising of conceits, comparison and unconscious projections as well.
I offer some examples below, spoken from a teacher's voice within a teaching relationship. Projection and projective identification play out in a variety of ways, and may be first experienced as a feeling or intuitive knowing that something seems “off”.
“It happens internally when I feel threatened. Accused of something I don’t think I did, at least not intentionally. A subtle or not so subtle feeling of being “under attack”. Like I need to protect myself from humiliation. From being seen in the wrong. My good will is not recognized. The hard work I have done, lost. This twists around in my mind, and then the student becomes the one doing wrong.”
“It was strange to feel paranoid during our group discussions. It is not a typical state for me, yet every time this student corrected my grammar or brought in a dharma teaching like he was the expert, my paranoia increased. All the while he was as calm as can be, and appeared to me like he was getting pleasure from “besting me” each time we talked.”
“I wish students would grow up and not bring their psychological issues into the dharma. One student accused me of abandoning her when our retreat ended! She asked to set up a time to meet just so she could tell me how I made her feel. I am not her parent or her therapist. She is so needy. Obviously she doesn’t understand the teaching on impermanence.”
“I was the object of projective identification but it could not stick too well; the hook was not there. But it was confusing and uncomfortable. The student wanted to test me on paradoxical teachings that she did not understand. Over time and with some individual interviews, I could understand the conditions from her point of view. She projected the fight with her own “lying tricky mind” onto me and the teachings. While feeling hostage to her confrontations, I also felt a deep sorrow for the delusional dance we were caught in.”
Rev. 10/28/2020